Sony PS3 narrows gap with Nintendo Wii
Xbox 360 in the ascendant as others fall
The PlayStation 3 continued to narrow the sales advantage enjoyed by Nintendo's Wii in Japan last month, a local games magazine publisher has claimed. However, both companies experienced much lower sales than they have in recent months.
During October, Nintendo sold 110,415 Wiis, while Sony shipped 47,183 PS3s, publisher Enterbrain said by way of Reuters. Compare that to the 245,653 Wiis and 81,541 PS3s sold in August, as recorded by Enterbrain at the time.
Microsoft sold 11,288 Xbox 360s in Japan in August, rising to 18,717 in October. It's the only third-generation consoles to have seen a month-on-month sales increase of late, though the gain is small. Still, a small gain is better, perhaps, than the big drops Nintendo and Sony have experienced.
Last month, Enterbrain said Nintendo had shipped 1.6m Wiis in the six months from the beginning of April to the end of September. Sony shipped 385,492 PS3s in the same period. Alas, it didn't break out September's totals, but we'd estimate 175,000 Wiis and 60,000 PS3s if the August-October decline is linear. Those estimates give us approximate figures for April, thanks to Enterbrain's totals.
Japan's third-gen console sales: April-October 2007
Source: Enterbrain, Register Hardware
In October, both Microsoft and Sony cut the prices of their consoles, and while that may have helped the US software giant a little, we'd say Halo 3 did it more good. The game certainly helped in the US, where the 360 outsold the Wii in September.
However, November will be the crucial month, not only because of ramping pre-Christmas sales, but because of the arrival of the 40GB PS3 on 11 November. Have Japanese buyers been holding back, awaiting the cheaper machine? Will it be enough to dent demand for the Wii?
We await Enterbrain's November totals with interest.
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COMMENTS
Need a wii
Anybody who needs a wii, try amazon.de & amazon.fr they are still in stock and only £176.
Ordered mine on monday received today
Re: Laughable
Actually, Mark, Nintendo has been able to deliver more consoles in a shorter period of time than anyone in history. So much for the second part of your theory.
As for the low price, yes that definitely helps. So what? You make it sound like that's a bad thing.
But your claim that people are being "conned" is riduculous considering the actual facts here.
If the Wii fad has worn off, then how come PS3 sales are dropping as well? Is that a fad too?
It's al a big fix
Went into my local games shop and they said that I had next to no chance of getting a Wii before christmas. Pathetic in my opinion. This has to have been planned as I fail to believe that Nintendo could not meet demand with all the resources that they have.
Lets face it, the Wii is graphically pants. The chap in the game store even tried to convince me that the graphics were on a par with the 360 and PS3. Once I had picked myself off the floor I thought it better to steer him away from that line of questioning as he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. I felt embarrassed for him.
Anyway, I am drifting off from my point. The current crop of console makers are pants, lets have Sega back. the Wii is fun, but graphicaly flawed and IMO over-priced considering the extras can run to a higher cost than the machine. I totted up that my daughter would need at least one extra controller and a covers for the nunchucks etc, very expensive. The Xbox is great in principle, but M$ seem to always have reliability issues RROD, overheating, sounds like a jet engine etc. Sony want to push Blue-ray on us and are taking a big hit for doing it. I am sure though that they are running the marathon rather than the sprint.
There is no scarcity, it is a big trick to milk us at christmas. They (console makers) should all be lined up against a wall and asked to justify the current state of affairs.
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